Behavior of discrete fiber-reinforced sandy soil in large-scale simple shear tests

This study presents results from a series of large-scale simple shear tests performed on sandy soil reinforced with randomly distributed fibers. The soil was mixed with polypropylene, glass and basalt fiber, respectively, with fiber content varying from 0% to 2% and sheared under a normal stress ranging from 100 kPa to 300 kPa. The effects of fiber type, content and normal stress on shear strength and the dilatancy behavior were examined. The friction state theory was employed to interpret the influence of fiber reinforcement on the dilatancy behavior. The results indicate that the additions of polypropylene and basalt fibers are beneficial to enhancing ultimate shear strength, whereas the glass fiber makes little contribution. It is shown that the fiber inclusion hinders the close packing and interlocking of soil particles and hence produces relatively looser soil fabric in the as-compacted state, leading to increased volume contraction accompanied by a negligible improvement or even reduction in shearing stiffness over a small to moderate strain range. The most obvious increase in shear strength generally occurs at a shear strain exceeding 10%, where the fibers and particles are in tight contact with each other, allowing full interface interaction and the mobilization of fiber tensile strength.